To mine or not mine, that is the question

I admit, I was a late starter to the game of Minecraft. I still haven’t gotten very good at it and my motivation of continuing comes and goes but I do remember mining for gold, diamonds, lapis lazuli and redstone. It was the anticipation of finding these minerals that kept me digging through a ton of blocks. After learning how to enhance tools using a library and enchantment table, one of the first tool that I enhanced (with Fortune) was the diamond pick. I can’t really say if it helped me find more of these resources but it sure looked magical. The Minecraft Ultimate Survival Book may be of use if you can’t get your fill from what’s available on the web.

To mine or not to mine, that is the question

At some point after setting up my Bitcoin+ portfolio, I became interested in mining coins. I really didn’t want to mine from from my home rig and I didn’t have enough expertise to set up a dedicated mining rig. This is when I read about cloud mining. There are a few that were recommended by the bitcoin mining community that seemed legitimate and perhaps worth a look at but for me the one that stood out was Genesis-Mining. The best feature was that it didn’t require any hardware since it is a cloud mining service and the only thing that I was required to do was to set up and fund my account. I can’t say that it is the best cloud mining service because it’s the only one I’ve used but I can say that I have received regular payments from them.

If you plan on visiting their website, please be sure to check out the Pricing Plans they have available as they do change. Also, if you are interested in setting up an account there be sure to use a discount code (mine is f27LNP) since that will allow you some savings on the plan you decide on. Paying by Bitcoin or one of the accepted altcoins will provide you faster access to your mining rewards and payouts. I used my credit card to purchase a plan and had to wait a month before any payouts were actually issued. I almost always do a daily check to see the progress of my mining plan. At first I was allocating my mining hashpower to bitcoin and a few altcoins but since then have switched to just bitcoin. The allocations are easily adjusted to your liking and are reflected as a percentage of your mining power.

As for when the payouts will break even for my two year plan, I can’t really say but according to my cryptocurrency spreadsheet it’ll most likely be in 15-18 months. That would mean that if the cryptocurrency world stays afloat or progresses and doesn’t collapse then I might be looking at a 10-20% ROI. I wouldn’t call that figure exactly great when compared to the growth percentage of Bitcoin. As Tyler Cowen implies in his book, Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, the use of technology will and has already changed the landscape of the world so staking money in cryptocurrencies and using a cloud mining company is probably better than parking your money at a bank.